Intimate Love – Love – The Battle – Artista Eli – 2012

Intimate love, in my opinion, is the highest and most important aspect of love. It encompasses a variety of other aspects of love within one relationship.

Essentially it is a relationship in which to create and/or nurture children (do not forget that we live in times with a variety of personal relationship set ups and sometimes the children we raise are not our own, but this does not mean that our job raising these children is less important than those raising children who are our own by birth.

Intimate love has the power to triumph over all fears and obstacles. Lovers have been known to give up everything for each others love – fortunes have been lost, kings have abdicated, people have given up their families and their homes for love. Many people now even travel across the world for love. Genuine intimate love is one of the few things in life that cannot be bought or sold.

Intimate love fulfils our desire to be needed and wanted. It satisfies our sexual needs in a safe and exciting way. It fulfils our need for companionship and supports our emotional and intellectual growth. It allows us to let down our defensive guard and disclose our vulnerability in the safe confines of the home. Our lover is our advisor, our cheer leader, our psychiatrist and our playmate.

In order to have a healthy relationship we must learn how to communicate; become trustworthy and trust our lover; make healthy compromises and understand our lover’s needs.

The main reason relationships become unhealthy is because of a lack of communication and lack of compassion for our partner. When we give love, our love is usually returned to us. When we stop giving, then we stop receiving. If when we give, we do not receive, then we know there is a problem somewhere and it is important to communicate, in order to resolve the problem. All relationships go through difficult times and no relationship is like a perfect fairy tale. A great link on this subject is: http://empowermenthub.blogspot.com.es/2012/04/six-important-facts-no-one-tells-you.html

In my painting I have depicted a version of Klimt’s ‘The Kiss’. I feel there is no better image to show intimate love than this one. It simply cannot be improved on. I have updated the image by including ‘Smiley faces’ on one part of the cloak, on one of the figures, to represent happiness and ecstasy, and Sunflowers on the other part of the cloak, to represent warmth, the workings of the universe and the source of life. I have painted cherry blossom on the other figures clothes, to represent the cycles of life, death and rebirth, echoing the cycles we experience when we become part of an intimate relationship. The couple stand on the highest point of the ground plane, in opposition to ‘The Greed General’ making the point that love is ultimately more powerful than money.